NBA Opening Night Set A Record On NBC, Peacock

The NBA and NBC Sports set opening-night viewership records with a tripleheader, led by a doubleheader that averaged 6.41 million viewers on NBC and Peacock—the league’s most-watched opening night ever.

The Sixers-Knicks and Thunder-Spurs games rose 14% from last year’s 5.6 million and topped the prior record of 5.7 million from 2011. The Pistons-Celtics afternoon game averaged 2.52 million. The three games also generated a record 700 million-plus social media views.

The Knicks received championship rings before facing a Sixers team with LeBron James and Jaylen Brown alongside Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxey. The Thunder and Spurs rematched after a seven-game Western Conference Finals, while the Pistons and Celtics entered as Eastern contenders.

NBC Sports scheduled the tripleheader, including daytime games, to build broader opening-day interest. “Baseball opening day inherently has a ton of excitement around it,” said Justin Byczek, NBC Sports’ executive vice president of programming and rights management. “This is a step in the direction of, ‘Can we create larger national enthusiasm with the league around Opening Day?’ We believe we can.”

NBC will air Warriors-Nuggets on Monday and Knicks-Pistons plus Lakers-Trail Blazers on Tuesday. It plans quadrupleheaders on Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Presidents’ Day. Byczek said NBC is likely to schedule future opening-night tripleheaders. The league’s rights deal with NBC Sports, Amazon Prime Video, and ESPN/ABC runs through the 2035-36 season.